." >>> in mobile, alabama, for us this morning, jim cantore. good morning. >> reporter: good morning, savannah. storm prediction center said we had as many as 34 tornadoes yesterday. average for the month of december is 26. church behind me here heavily damaged, two sections of the roof have been torn off and dropped below. christmas morning, that church was full of people and parishioners attending christmas service. power poles have been taken down as well. the last thing people in mobile expected on christmas day was to be cleaning up after a tornado. >> oh, my god! look at that. >> reporter: this was the scene in downtown mobile, alabama, late tuesday afternoon, a tornado touched down in the city of about 200,000. >> oh, wow! check that tornado out. it's been on the ground now for over a minute. >> reporter: the christmas day tornado damaged buildings, brought down trees, power lines and ripped through the wall of this church. workers in the area describe the scary moments. >> praying for everybody and everyone was kind of like in panic mod